Cleansing

After a period of accumulation of toxins, pollutants, stress, and other various poisons, there must be cleansing, a purging, a denial of comfort and habit. I fasted and burnt sage in my cabin and washed my bedding, and as I did these things I thought of how cleansing was important not just in my own life, but in every one’s life, and for Gaia en total. Scientists of different concentrations and environmentally minded politicians are all pointing, increasingly agitated, at the quickly approaching tipping point for atmospheric pollutants and other man-made disturbances of the delicate balances which sustains life as we currently know it. One way or the other, nature and the earth–la pachamama, Gaia, the biosphere, Amazon, what have you–will cleanse itself through its own inevitable purgative processes. In my own lifetime, I am resigned to seeing increasingly dangerous endemics and epidemics, on the level not seen since the so-called Dark Ages (read A Betrayal of Trust for more information on the destitution of our public health institutions), I will not be surprised to see increasing warfare for diminishing resources such as water and oil, and I will further expect to see more hurricanes, more earthquakes, more of the signs of an embattled earth struggling to regain its footing. These are not signs of the apocalypse, these are the inevitable results of our unsustainable lifestyles.
I think that there are certain people–of fundamentalist religious orientation–out there who are quite excited to view signs of impending doom and destruction, thinking them signs of the coming Rapture or something, when all bad people will go to Hell and all the close minded people will go to Golden Paved Suburbs. I am not excited at all about the current trajectory of our planet and people, but I feel that if I care at all about my loved ones and family, I need to begin looking ahead, even 50 years down the line, thinking about what kinds of challenges we will face. There is paranoia, and then there is clear sighted preparation. There were probably many people in New Orleans who dismissed scenarios of impending disaster and refused to consider the loss of their homes and livelihoods, the loss of their very city. It is not paranoia to consider such things. In fact, it is a civic duty, and our federal government has already demonstrated its incompetency in this regard, as in most other areas. So it really comes down to local governing systems, inevitably down to the very neighborhoods and households of the communities, to be ready to help one another in times of disaster. In such times, you can’t rely on the President or the Police to bail you out. In fact, you can rely on them to present themselves as enemies and obstacles to unity and sharing, as they were in New Orleans. (They always have been, it simply becomes more apparent in such times.)
So looking ahead at such admittedly discomforting scenarios, I wish to find clarity. Clarity of purpose, clarity of mind, heart, and spirit. And this will only be found by cleansing myself of all that is negative and severing all that binds me to anger, bitterness, and hatred. All human beings wish to live, and all deserve their chance to struggle.